Recent content by aquaticko

The really galling thing is that the exact same line of reasoning people use to build "lifestyle centers", single-family suburbia, and ever-widening highways is the same as that which we use to justify building rail and density. It's news to no one here, but car infrastructure isn't profitable...

"Sources, however, say Deutsche Bahn pushed for ambitious, European-style changes, while some of the Crown agency’s leadership resisted, insistent that things work differently in Canada." F%^*ing hell. Worse; did they mean worse? They meant to say worse, right? What an awful, unfunny joke...

Only difference in this case is likely the integration of the two areas. Boston and Cambridge? You don't have to be from elsewhere to feel like they're one and the same; the longest bridge across the Charles in Boston is less than a half-mile, and obviously having Boston next to MIT and Harvard...

On the ground, it's quite different. It's not entirely dead, by any means, but it is separated from the rest of the city by I5, and it's far enough from the rest of downtown that the vibe is more "special development district" than being meaningfully representative of the pace or normalcy of...

If it's any consolation to you guys, Boston's a paragon of permissiveness to height compared to where I am now--Portland, OR. We have people in our downtown fighting against six stories because they'd "ruin neighborhood character", even when there are taller buildings everywhere. It's...

Especially given how much of Mass' VMT is likely Boston-area commuting-hour traffic, a hybrid mandate seems like an easier place to start. Honestly, hybrids should be >50% of sales, everywhere, considering what a difference hybrid systems can make in stop-and-go traffic (their impact is less...

Seeing how close this is to the Boston Express stop at exit 2 has me fantasizing about car-free travel in the area, provided that this development is a catalyst for more density in between

Do these people ever think before they speak? I bet she doesn’t see a lot of cars on the Merrimack River, either.

Agreed. I'd think the service penalties of heavier--i.e., slower accel/decel--trains and the need for either lower frequency or longer non-revenue times for charging cycles is a bigger issue with them with relative to EMUs. Putting up wires remains the objectively most sensible option for any...

Sure, but if you give up what you've done already, you're going to have to start at zero again, anyway. Why not do the annoying-and-somewhat-disreputable thing of bowing down and maybe making it work, instead of shooting yourself in both feet preemptively? Of course, in a civilized country...

It is so, so incredibly frustrating (albeit generally unsurprising) to see so many capitulate to the angry orange before he even demands it of them. We're really regressing to an aristocratic system of administration; you kiss the king's ring or leave the court if you anticipate he's not going...

This is one of those things that still boggles a little bit. I know that American government has, as a rule, always been pretty hands-off about this kind of thing, but there must've been some documentation about it somewhere, even if in a musty old filing cabinet in some defunct agency's...

So if I'm seeing this correctly, the hotel would be demolished for even more parking?? I haven't lived in Manch for a couple years now, and never spent much time in this area besides going to the theater (when it was there) and the Hannaford's when I did, but I never remember this parking crater...

I think we all here know that the financial objections over commuter rail to NH is a red herring. "Trains are socialist"; "we don't want the countryside subsidizing a city train"; etc., etc., on and on. NH conservatives/libertarians/whateveryouwanttocallthems are so far up their own behinds...

I dunno, there's a good chance they (meaning anti-transit people) will seize the high cost of Caltrain's electrification as a reason not to do it, rather than a lesson on how to do it better. Why learn to do the project right when you can try to persuade people not to do it at all? That was...